Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Reverse Engineering

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Sat, Feb 06, 2016 at 10:01:13 +0100, Fabio Pesari wrote:
> That's my main criticism of Libreboot. Instead of freeing old boards,
> the community should focus on building its own. Yes, that's expensive
> and needs experts and it's more about hardware than software, but there
> is no "Free Hardware Foundation" and the free software community should
> be able to fund its own research just like corporations do.

I agree that we need completely free systems from the hardware up.  But
as someone with two young children and a new house, living off of a
single income while my wife is finishing up her schooling, I can't even
come close to affording new hardware.  My current laptop is one that I
scavenged years ago, and dislike very much.  My desktop PC (which I use
as a server; laptop is more of a thin client than anything) is older
than the laptop.

I'm fortunate enough to not need proprietary blobs in my kernel to run
anything on either of those computers.  But if I did, then that'd be
terribly unfortunate, because even as a strong free software activist, I
wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.  So I _depend_ on those people
that reverse engineer hardware and write free drivers; they're doing
good and important work, and I'm very grateful for it.

There are a number of people that are either in my position, are worse
off, or simply don't want to put money into new hardware.  As a
GNU/Linux user, I'm used to repurposing old hardware---a 10--15-year old
machine might have plenty of processing power for most everything I do,
except compiling large programs like GNU IceCat or Emacs.

And we gain some good ground in doing so: a PC that old is useless and
even dangerous to use with proprietary operating systems like Windows,
since old versions no longer receive security updates.  Modern software
might not work on them.  And they're often slow due to both the
operating system, bloatware, and malware.  But put an appropriate
GNU/Linux distro on there (for the hardware) and you have yourself a
shiny new PC.  Users are introduced to the concept of Free Software, and
some will come to value those freedoms.  And for those who might
otherwise have decided to buy a new computer, you've saved one person
from the modern evils of (probably) Microsoft or Apple, and you've
deprived those companies of another customer.

So projects like Libreboot are necessary.  Old hardware is sticking with
us for a long time.

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker | GNU Maintainer
https://mikegerwitz.com
FSF Member #5804 | GPG Key ID: 0x8EE30EAB

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